Cicero in Letters

Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic

Peter White

analyzes letter-writing habits and political preoccupations that define the correspondence between Cicero and his contemporaries

Cicero in Letters

Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic

Peter White

Description

Cicero in Letters is a guide to the first extensive correspondence that survives from the Greco-Roman world. The more than eight hundred letters of Cicero that are its core provided literary models for subsequent letter writers from Pliny to Petrarch to Samuel Johnson and beyond. The collection also includes some one hundred letters by Cicero's contemporaries. The letters they exchanged provide unique insight into the experience of the Roman political class at the turning point between Republican and imperial rule.

The first part of this study analyzes effects of the milieu in which the letters were written. The lack of an organized postal system limited the correspondence that Cicero and his contemporaries could conduct and influenced what they were
willing to write about. Their chief motive for exchanging letters was to protect political relationships until they could resume their customary, face-to-face association in Rome. Romans did not normally sign letters, much less write them in their own hand. Their correspondence was handled by agents who drafted, expedited, and interpreted it. Yet every letter advertised the level of intimacy that bound the writer and the addressee. Finally, the published letters were not drawn at random from the archives that Cicero left. An editor selected and arranged them in order to impress on readers a particular view of Cicero as a public personality. The second half of the book explores the significance of leading themes in the letters. It shows how, in a time of deepening crisis, Cicero and his
correspondents drew on their knowledge of literature, the habit of consultation, and the rhetoric of government in an effort to improve cooperation and to maintain the political culture which they shared. The result is a revealing look at Cicero's epistolary practices and also the world of elite social intercourse in the late Republic.

Cicero in Letters

Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic

Peter White

Table of Contents

I. Reading the Letters from the Outside In1. Constraints and Biases in Roman Letter-Writing2. The Editing of the Collection3. Frames of the Letter

II. Epistolary Preoccupations4. The Letters and Literature5. Giving and Getting Advice by Letter6. Letter-Writing and Leadership

Afterword: The Collection in HindsightAppendix 1: Quantifying the Letter CorpusAppendix 2: Contemporary Works Mentioned in the LettersBibliography of Titles Cited

Cicero in Letters

Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic

Peter White

Author Information

Peter White is Herman C. Bernick Family Professor in Classics and the College at the University of Chicago. His previous books include Promised Verse, winner of the Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit from the American Philological Association.

Cicero in Letters

Epistolary Relations of the Late Republic

Peter White

Reviews and Awards

"This study provides an insightful introduction to many of the sociological aspects of Cicero's correspondence and will serve as an excellent complementary text for graduate and undergraduate courses on Roman letters."--Jon Hall, New England Classical Journal

"White's book is another excellent addition to our renewed understanding and appreciation of the great Cicero."--Clifford Cunningham, Sun News Network

"Writing in a clear, compelling style that immediately piques the reader's interest, White relates the context and contents of the letters to modern circumstances. Recommended." --CHOICE

"White is a splendid guide to the strategies of Cicero's letters and to the social values and motives underpinning those strategies."-William Fitzgerald, Times Literary Supplement